how to approach cat run cycle?

[skurge13]

Funny you should post this...I'm having a similar problem. Hope someone can give us a good reference tut or some advice.

[Streetgrime]

Hello guys,

I just bought the animal motion show. Its put out by "Rhino House"

The clips of animals in motion they give you is somewhat astounding. they really put together a quality product. The assortment of animals included is really impressive too.

The link is rhinohouse.com

hope that helps

heh .. and NO... I dont work there.

[joconnell]

Is there any side views of lions running in it?

P.S. I'll post some reference images later with movement for skurge13

[joconnell]

Just as a starting point, you could take a look on www.freetoon.com which is an online version of preston blair's cartoon animation - it's a great book which disney use as a training manual, far as I know. Here's two animated gifs that I've been using as my reference - mainly the tiger as it's the type of run I need, plus there's less frames to complicate it. I really wouldn't recommend trying to rotoscope the entire thing, it seems to always end badly. I took about 3 key poses and then worked on the arcs in between and now I'm getting results.

Tiger:
http://www.joconnell.com/temp/cat_run.gif

Doggy!!!
http://www.joconnell.com/temp/cat_run.gif

Eadward muybridge thingie - again I wouldn't try rotoscoping it:
Tiger:
http://www.joconnell.com/temp/cat_ani.gif

I'll post my animation when it's done :)

p.s. they don't loop - do it yourselves :p

[paul k.]

I would suggest that you take a different approach than just using video of cycling animals. Don't get me wrong I understand how that can really teach you a lot, but I think it will teach you even more after you understand the nature of a quadropeds walk ore a biped for that matter. I would highly recomend buying Richard Williams- Animation Survival Kit. Richard worked a Disney, Warner Bros. etc. and won an academy award for animation direction on Roger Rabbit. It really gets underneath what is happening with a character when they move and I have found it invaluable.

[adavies]

the best way I've found to approach this sort of thing is to treat the cat as a whole, use your muybridge as reference and key the main poses, if you do that your animation should work out ok.

Animation motion show is GREAT btw, we have both of them here and they are so helpful and they DO have videos of big cats, well it's a tiger but there's not much difference!

[joconnell]

Yeah I've kind of got it working the way I want it now - I used two poses from a tiger run cycle, made two more myself and spent bugger ages tweaking the arcs. Cheers for the thoughts and I'll pick up a copy of the animation survival kit next time I'm in a bookshop. :)

[skurge13]

Are you feeling brave enough to post your animation so we can take a gander?

[joconnell]

http://www.joconnell.com/temp/lion_run.mpg

Two things to note are that first of all it's supposed to be slowmo and it'll only ever be seen from the front so I don't care too much about the rear legs deformation (bad habit admittedly but I don't have time to care in this case). On to the hair next :)

[adavies]

offset your legs dude

[Kruvi]

Actually I recently had to make cat jump and run.

Basically what I used is varius film footage of cats running and playing around and also the same cat_ani.gif joconnell posted.

The outcome is quite nice if you get the correct timing, bone movement and correct mesh deformation.

Another useful resource could be applying Protons quick walkcycle tutorial, the basics apply.

[joconnell]

ADAVIES:

Totally correst, I was working on a fluid cycle first and then was going to offset the legs, mainly the front ones as the back legs dont seperate that much. Any other thoughts? I'll stick up another version later with some facial animation and hair stuff.

[ivo D]

im a reall noob in animation.. but now i start with the legs when i animate a walk.

body can be modified afterwords..the body movement is a lot easyer than the legs, so i dont let my bodymovement interfere with my leg movement.

im afraid that will , and would be the case if i did the body first..

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